Aloha! Not sure when this will get posted as I’ve got a fair bit of blog content preplanned but for those of you reading this in the future, know that I’m writing this the day before I head off to YALC and my whole brain is a mess of anxiety and excitement. I needed to get my head into some writing to calm my nerves but this may come out more blithery than I want it to…

So I’m getting married two months from now at the end of September and, while I often mention the Fiancé on this blog I don’t think I’ve told you guys much about the wedding. Also, if you’re anything like me, you’ll love a proposal story so I thought I’d tell ours as it makes me smile.

So flash back to August last year. I spent a wonderful day in my colleagues garage crafting a beautiful ring I could give to my then boyfriend when I asked him to marry me. (A little background, we decided a long time ago that I would ask him first and then he would ask me, long story). This colleague happens to have a degree in silversmithing and jewelry making and I’m so pleased I got the chance to make the ring as it made it so much more special.

My asking, well that wasn’t particularly special (in my opinion) as I am so appalling at keeping secrets I just wanted to ask him. So we’d had a not very nice dinner of tuna hash (no don’t try it, not good) and I turned around, grabbed the ring from my bag and said ‘I think I know how to make a bad day a little better.’ Long story short he said yes and we were engaged.

But we couldn’t tell people we were engaged until he asked me. And because it’s Tom he’s a lot better at planning things than I am. He got the perfect ring (largely because I sent him a link to the one I wanted) and then managed to hide it from my snooping fingers for a week and a half until we went out for dinner.

Bear in mind I was in the middle of rehearsal week for a show we were taking to the Edinburgh Fringe so I was a little exhausted and hopped up on nerves and excitement anyway, throw a prospective proposal in the mix and I was a bundle of hyperactivity.

So, we get to dinner in a non-fancy restaurant in Oxford. Tom’s wearing a blazer so I know something is up (it was too warm a day for a blazer). By this point I was fairly sure I knew what was going on, I was just praying Tom wasn’t going to propose in Noodle Nation because that would have been a much less romantic story.

Sure enough we finished dinner and stepped outside. I very subtly bumped into Tom to confirm the ring was in his pocket. He noticed. At this point we are both aware of what is going on, we are also both aware that the other person knows. But neither one of us wanted to ruin it so we went along with the evening as Tom planned.

We walked back through Oxford towards the student house we were both staying in at the time. We paused by Magdalen College and Tom suggested very subtly that we go for a walk around because he wasn’t ready to go home yet. Smirking quietly i followed him into his old college.

We made our way all the way around the little walk you can do, ran into one of Tom’s tutors, as you do on big evenings, eventually making it back to the bridge that is the start of Addisons walk.

Now a thing about this bridge, this is actually where Tom and I first met, through a mutual friend and the Magdalen College Pooh Sticks Society, a joke society (though he won’t like me for saying that) Tom and a friend set up a year before I came to the university. So this is a bridge that’s very special to us, it’s also a beautiful setting with the old buildings and the little river and a distinct lack of students in the summer.

Tom starts saying a lot of things that I wish I had recorded so I could write them here but the sentiment I’m sure you can imagine. I’m grinning like a fool by this point and because I’m an awkward individual I say:

‘Don’t get on one knee.’

So of course Tom got on one knee.

And the rest, as they say, is history!

Phewf! Well done for making it this far! I may do another post like this about the wedding in the future since it’s been such a big part of my life for the last year or so. There are some very bookish elements I’d like to show you as well!